Posted by Doug M on August 07, 19100 at 06:49:12:
I cut and pasted this from a post I made in alt.hvac, so the spacing is funny. Many of you might remember me asking where to take my 'Burban to get the AC fixed. I should have waited for the response.
I have a 1991 Suburban with rear (and front) AC. The AC was working
flawlessly, but my compressor had been making noise all last summer,
and it was worse this summer. I thought I'd better take it in before
the compressor puked in my system. Let me re-iterate. The AC was
working to perfection, far better than my little 1995 Mazda Protege
with that nasty R-134.
I took it to the local Tunex, because they had done good work on
another car's AC about ten years ago. I don't have much need for car
service, so I never know where to take it. They replaced the
compressor with rebuilt, replaced the receiver/dryer, and the orifice
tube (is that the little filter thing?), and flushed the system. They
gave me credit for all but 3/4 lb of Freon, since the system was only
down 3/4 lb after ten years. $565.
The AC worked well on the ride home, but was not cooling well the next
day. ...took it back, and they fixed a leaky O-ring for one of the
fittings he'd taken loose. All is well, so I leave on vacation the
next day or so. 90 miles into the trip, the AC quits all of a sudden,
with a pop and hissing sound. I turn it off, and take it back to
Tunex when I got back a week later. The POS rebuilt pump I let the
guy talk me into has disintegrated. "Great!", says I. The very thing
I didn't want to happen, happened. So they replace the compressor,
but not anything else. I don't know if they flushed again, but I
don't think so.
The AC works fairly well, but never seems as good as it was to start
with. It finally got so bad after about a week, I took it back. They
replace the little filter thingy (orifice tube, they said). It works
better, but cooling capacity is down at LEAST 40% from when It had the OEM compressor a month ago. It will cool the
truck okay on the freeway on max recirc, with the rear unit going, but
the minute I get off the freeway, it blows nearly warm air.
I live in Utah, so humidity is not an issue. The outside air temp is
in the high 90's lately. I'm going to take it back again today. I
think I've been very patient, with four trips to Tunex, and the AC is
nowhere near as good as when I first took it in. What else should
they be doing? I'm inclined to nicely ask for a full refund, so I can
take the Suburban somewhere that can find their butt with both hands.
I'm taking it back today, and if it isn't fixed, and they aren't
inclined to refund, I'll take it up with my credit card company.
Am I being reasonable? What are they doing wrong? What kind of
temperature should I expect coming out of the vent on max fan with
recirc? I think it's about 55 degrees or so on the freeway, maybe to
50, but rises to 60 or more in town. It won't cool at all at idle,
and it used to before all this started.
Sorry for the long post, but it's been a long problem.
Doug
dougm AT csolutions DOT net